Estonia arrests Russian professor suspected of spying for Moscow 

Estonian authorities have detained a Russian academic in Tartu suspected of espionage aimed against the country.

Viacheslav Morozov has been working as a professor of international political theory at the University of Tartu since 2010.

The Estonian Internal Security Service (ISS) said in a press release that it has launched an investigation into Morozov. The ISS detained him on January 3, but has made the case public only now.

“The aggressor’s intelligence interest in Estonia remains considerable,” ISS Director Margo Polloson said about Russia. “This recent case follows a few dozen others and illustrates Russian intelligence agencies’ desire to infiltrate different walks of life in Estonia, including academia.”

Morozov was placed in custody for two months. He was transferred to a prison in Tallinn. The professor could evade criminal proceedings or continue to commit offenses at large, Public Prosecutor Triinu Olev said.

Kristiina Tõnisson, head of the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu, where Morozov was working until recently, wrote to alumni that the Russian professor was fired after being detained.

“We have had no grounds to question Viacheslav Morozov’s earlier work, but in the light of new knowledge, it is important to critically review it,” she added in a letter cited by the ERR, Estonia’s public broadcaster. The University of Tartu Rector Toomas Asser said he was worried that a person now suspected of undermining national security has worked for years at a university.

But one Russian political scientist, who left the country for self-imposed exile in Europe after President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, told POLITICO that Morozov’s arrest came as a shock.

The professor was granted anonymity to speak candidly because of their status as an exile. “I have never encountered any anti-Estonian or any other of his activities outside of his left-liberal publications,” said the professor, who knows Morozov.

Moscow has not yet reacted to Morozov’s arrest.

Estonian authorities have already caught locals suspected of spying for Russia, but this is the first time an exiled Russian academic faces similar charges. Russian scientists based in Russia, however, often end up in prison charged with high treason, especially after collaborating with foreign colleagues. There were more than a dozen such cases in the last decade.

Morozov, 51, is a political scientist who holds a PhD in historical sciences, and is well known in scientific and Russian opposition circles.

His main research interests are theory, critique of postcolonialism, ideology and discourses in Russia, and EU-Russia relations. He often appeared in independent Russian media, commenting on the war in Ukraine.